Technology assistance for Thai broiler farms

The rice-milling, rubber-production and chicken-raising industries are being targeted for new-technology assistance by the Technology Management Centre (TMC)'s Industrial Technology Assistance Programme (iTAP) in Thailand.

Under what is called the "iTAP Big Impact" scheme, TMC plans to offer its services and funding subsidies to help greater numbers of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the 3 flagship industries.

TMC's director Chatchanart Theptharanon said the ambitious move aimed to help the many SMEs involved in the three vitally important industries to adopt technologies to improve their productivity and save energy. The industries were chosen because they generate Thailand's core revenue.

In the chicken-raising industry, the programme aims to install locally made air-control fans in broiler houses. The 50-inch fans are cheaper than imported models and produce no noise.

Chatchanart said that working with King's Mongkut's University of Technology Thon Buri and the Betagro Group, iTAP had developed 50-inch air-control fans that were half the cost of imported models and achieved a 23% energy saving.

"Normally, each broiler house requires 10 air-control fans. If all of the 64,000 broiler houses in Thailand deployed this technology, the country would save up to Bt1.3 bln (€26.7 mln) per year," Chatchanart said.

The locally-made fans will also relieve tension and stress among the chickens because they produce no noise, she said.

"In all these programmes, iTAP will provide up to 50% of the total cost of technology deployment, but not over Bt500,000 (app. €10,000).

“Up to now, we have helped about 300 SMEs, but we aim to significantly increase those numbers through iTAP Big Impact," she said.